


Action Hero Figures and Ham Sandwiches

by Selenay



Category: Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
Genre: Friendship, M/M, Pre-Slash, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 14:54:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/599032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selenay/pseuds/Selenay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Peter and Flash met, they almost bonded. Until the moment Flash said something stupid.</p>
<p>That has been the pattern of their relationship until now but maybe things are about to change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Action Hero Figures and Ham Sandwiches

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aliassmith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliassmith/gifts).



> Thank you to my wonderful beta (name redacted until the reveal) for helping me get this into shape. I tried really, really hard to make this a fic filled with happy first kisses and so on. But it got thoughtful and wouldn't quite go in that direction. You stated that you were happy with gen and ambiguous endings, so this turned into slashy friendship and I'm really hoping it fits the bill.

Peter Parker met Flash Thompson on the first day at his new school, only a few days after his parents left him with his aunt and uncle and disappeared. To say this wasn't an auspicious meeting was putting it mildly. Years later he admitted to himself that it might have gone better if they hadn't met while he was still filled with anger and confusion because his parents were gone and he was never going to see them again.

Of course, they were both ten which was never an easy age for any kid.

Also, even back then Flash Thompson had been a bully and Peter had been the kind of kid who stood up to bullies.

So, on balance, they were never going to meet on that first day and end up best friends. The best anyone could have hoped for would have been that they'd meet and spend the next few years vaguely tolerating each other's existence without ever having to interact beyond whatever horrible lab partnerships their teachers designed for them.

Instead they met and for one hopeful moment they almost bonded. Almost. Over a shared love for action hero figures (never dolls, oh no, Action Hero Figures, fistbump!) and ham sandwiches.

Then Flash said something stupid about one of the girls (Peter remembered years later that it was Gwen) and Peter stood up for her and somehow it degenerated into insults, then shoving and then tussling in the dirt although nobody could actually work out who threw the first punch.

Peter always claimed it was Flash. It might have been and Flash never denied it but back then Peter was angry and confused and Flash's stupid face was right there so it could have been Peter just as easily.

They both ended up standing in front of the principal, scuffing their feet on the floor as he yelled and called their parents. Peter had to correct him about that because it was his aunt and uncle, not his parents, who would be taking him home and glaring at him for getting a two day suspension on his first day at a new school.

After such a disastrous first encounter it was only natural that the next few years would be a string of fights, mostly verbal but sometimes physical, where Peter stood up for Flash's latest victim and Flash immediately turned his bully tactics on Peter. If it hadn't been for the Spiderman thing, Peter suspected they would have carried on like that forever.

***

Peter rarely thought about their first meeting anymore. He and Flash had always been antagonists, always found reasons to prickle and argue, so dwelling on the whys and hows had always seemed pointless. There were much bigger things to worry about and lately those problems had grown large enough to put homework and old school grudges a long way down his list of priorities.

Life and death, the nature of humanity and where the line lay between well-intentioned mistakes and true evil. The expression on Gwen's face when she realised he intended to honour his promise to her father. Those were the things haunting Peter's mind.

His old rivalry with Flash Thompson seemed childish and pathetic by comparison.

Lately it seemed like Flash was starting to think the same way. Peter wanted to kick himself sometimes because Flash had tried to sympathise after Uncle Ben died, tried to reach out, and he'd reacted the way he did when he was ten. There was Flash's stupid face again and he wanted to punch it.

As mature responses to difficult emotional situations went, that one ranked pretty low on the scale. Peter wasn't surprised when Flash kept a careful distance for the next couple of weeks. He had a feeling that the look in his eyes hadn't been entirely sane in that moment and although Flash had his issues, he wasn't an idiot.

It was those thoughts that were running around Peter's brain when he stopped for a short rest on a fire escape twenty-five floors above street level. There had never been a reason to find out where Flash lived so he had no idea that he was sitting just outside the living room window of his apartment.

No idea, until he heard voices shouting loud enough to float through the glazed window and turned to find out what was going on. Flash was standing a couple of feet away from an older man who Peter vaguely recognised as his father. It was the man who was shouting and his face was red with rage. His words were muffled and indistinct but Peter didn't need to understand them to hear that he was berating and belittling Flash.

Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly now Peter thought about it, Flash seemed to be just taking it. His expression was unreadable, carefully blank, and his eyes were fixed firmly on his father's shoes, but Peter could see the way his fists were flexing and his jaw clenched.

Peter couldn't tear his gaze away. It wasn't the first time he'd caught an eyeful of something he probably shouldn't have seen while travelling around New York's rooftops and skyscrapers. This wasn't even the first thing he'd seen and wished he could unsee.

It was the first time he'd learned something about someone he knew.

A sudden noise above made Peter look up, to where a pigeon was cooing happily on a fire escape a couple of floors above. He rolled his eyes and returned his attention to the scene in the window, just in time to see Flash's father throw something at Flash's head. He ducked away at the same time as he caught it neatly, obviously a familiar sequence of actions. The backpack in Flash's hands looked familiar and Peter realised it was the one he usually used for school.

Flash looked resigned now and his father was gesturing to the door angrily. Peter waited long enough to see Flash, his shoulders slumped and defeated, opening it and leaving.

Then he cast out a web and swung away so he couldn't see whether Flash emerged from the building and which direction he went in.

***

There is a narrative to life, a way that coincidences will always meet up in the end, and one of the unusual things about Peter was that he was aware of it. Most people aren't. Peter put it down to an overconsumption of books and video games, which had made it impossible not to see how stories have to go even in real life.

Admittedly, some days the narrative screwed up and he got surprised. He kind of liked it when that happened because it was new and fresh.

He figured it was why he'd dealt oddly well with suddenly acquiring spider powers and then battling a giant lizard. Life narrative: it was always the guys like Peter who ended up with the weird powers and the even weirder secret life.

So when Peter arrived at the scene of a drugstore hold up and found Flash facing off against three armed men, he wasn't entirely shocked. There was a sense of inevitability to it that he couldn't pretend not to feel.

Flash wasn't doing the sensible thing and lying on the floor with the other shoppers, acting terrified and pathetic. It was what Peter half expected because he'd always been taught that bullies were cowards. No, Flash was on his feet and apparently trying to challenge the guys with guns to some kind of stand-off.

Peter groaned internally because there was so much potential for disaster in this entire scenario. If he managed to get Flash out without getting him shot he'd be doing well. Getting Flash out, getting the bad guys into custody and getting away with it without Flash learning his secret identity?

Yeah, this was going to be one for the history books if he could do it. Particularly if he could do it without Flash recognising his voice. It wasn't as though Flash couldn't do the maths pretty easily and they'd known each other half their lives.

The robbers were standing in a horseshoe in a clear area near the storefront, their backs to the street, which put them between Peter and Flash. On the positive side, it meant Flash was facing the street and apparently he spotted Peter through the store window because his expression went from defiantly terrified to relieved in a heartbeat.

There was a barely perceptible shift in the stance of two of the robbers as they spotted the change in Flash's expression. They started to turn and Peter decided that this was as good a chance as he was likely to get. The bell over the drugstore door sounded unnecessarily cheery as he slammed the door open and immediately jumped for the ceiling.

His jump was perfectly timed because the air where he'd been standing was almost immediately filled with bullets. All the robbers were now distracted from Flash and Peter wasted no time: his first web strand hit Flash and sent him flying through the air, away from the robbers and the guns and into a display of power bars.

Peter was already on the move, scurrying and bouncing in the opposite direction from Flash and the other terrified shoppers. The gunmen tried to hit him but a moving target is always difficult, even for trained professionals.

These guys definitely weren't trained professionals.

With Flash out of the way, picking off the guns with precisely timed web shots and then tying the would-be heist gang into neat little packages for the authorities to take away was almost too easy. Peter grinned and couldn't resist a few cracks about their hygiene and pathetic aim as he danced around them and secured them to a handy wall.

For a moment after he finished there was silence in the shop and then the store manager stood up shakily from behind the cash register and said thank you.

Peter shrugged awkwardly and started to make his usual quick departure but a hand on his arm stopped him outside the shop, just before he could make his escape. He turned and was unsurprised to find Flash standing there.

The expression on Flash's face was more startling. He looked grateful and there was a hint of something else, something kind and maybe even a little admiring. Peter had never really seen Flash show anything except anger and, sometimes, a smirk that made Peter's teeth itch.

"Thanks," Flash said. "That was pretty awesome."

It was probably a good thing that the mask hid Peter's expression. He had a feeling that 'gobsmacked' wouldn't quite cover it.

"You know we all think the Daily Bugle's a load of shit, right?" Flash continued. "Like, total crap. I think...I think you're doing cool stuff."

Peter felt his eyebrows rise and was doubly glad for the total concealment of the mask.

"So, uh, thanks," Flash said again.

His hand tightened on Peter's wrist and, at any other time, Peter would have assumed this was another one of Flash's inane bully-boy tactics. Except right now the look on Flash's face was as far from bullying as it could be. In anyone else, Peter might have thought it was...hero-worship. Or something more. With maybe a hint of shy hopefulness.

Well, that was new and unexpected.

Peter didn't have much (any, if he was truthful) experience with this. Man or woman, so far he hadn't met anyone who'd looked at him this way and the fact that it was Flash Thompson was somehow the only part that wasn't making him panic. There was just the question of what to do. It wasn't like he could do the superhero thing, whip off his mask and kiss Flash in recognition of his bravery at being so open. Even leaving aside the part where they knew each other, Peter had a feeling that wasn't what Flash was really looking for. He might think he was and maybe on another day he really would have been.

Today, though, Flash was feeling hurt and rejected by his father, he'd had a shock with the robbers, and now he was apparently meeting his superhero crush.

No, what Flash needed was what Peter was going to do. Peter put a hand over Flash's, squeezed gently to let him know he'd been heard, and then shot out a web to the nearest high anchor point.

And somewhere deep inside, he half-expected it when Flash wrapped his arms around his shoulders just as he jumped away. Peter didn't try to shrug him off, instead helping him to settle a bit more securely before he started to swing them higher until they were a hundred feet above the street and flying.

Flash whooped loudly and Peter couldn't help laughing because yeah, this was the part of being Spiderman that was incredible: the wind rushing past, the height and the speed and the moment when he was suspended in midair and never quite knew where he might go next. It was addictive, exhilarating, and Flash seemed to get it.

Peter covered several blocks before he started looking for a rooftop and found one. Flash looked disappointed for a moment when they landed and Peter stepped away, but it didn't last long.

"That was fucking awesome!" Flash yelled.

A dozen clever quips came to mind but Peter fought them all down because Flash would definitely recognise his voice. Instead Peter reached out and patted Flash's shoulder companionably, trying to assure him that it had, indeed, been fucking awesome. Flash grinned at him and it was the first time since they were ten that that Peter had seem him looking so genuinely happy about something without any cruelty or anger hiding in his eyes.

Peter titled his head thoughtfully and after a brief hesitation, he let his hand drift up so he could cup Flash's jaw and rub a thumb over his cheek. Flash smiled and covered Peter's hand, just for a moment, before he stepped back and nodded.

"Thank you," Flash said again.

Peter nodded in return, an acknowledgment that this had happened and Flash could remember it however he wanted to, before turning and jumping off the roof.

***

When Peter saw Flash at school a couple of days later wearing his Spiderman t-shirt, he remembered that brief moment on the roof. He remembered what he'd seen in Flash's home and he said something nice because maybe Flash wasn't all bad.

Hell, maybe Flash could be a good friend one day, now that his stupid face didn't make Peter so angry he wanted to punch it. Because it turns out that maybe on the day when they met and became best enemies, they were both trying to deal with horrible things and if they hadn't been ten years old and confused and angry, maybe their shared love of action hero figures could have been the start of a beautiful friendship.

Flash and Peter against all the crap in the world. That sounded like a nice plan.


End file.
